


Homecoming

by thatmitchsentho



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-08-07 16:41:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7722115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatmitchsentho/pseuds/thatmitchsentho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Requested by anon from Tumblr in honor of Memorial Day. Beca Mitchell has been counting the days that Aubrey's been away, and going through the motions. And it's been a lot of days. (Short, fluffy, sweet.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homecoming

Beca Mitchell unlocked the door to her classroom and flicked the light-switch on. She set her armload down on her desk and unloaded all of her supplies for the day. The thick folders with her class outlines in them. The smaller folder with her attendance rolls inside alongside other important pieces of information. Then she moved her bag onto the floor and began straightening things up.

It was a habit she'd learned from her wife, Aubrey. She quite enjoyed her job teaching high school music, but organization was something that didn't come naturally to her. Fortunately, it did to Aubrey. She'd helped her plan a schedule, a filing system, everything. She had a routine of when she planned which classes, and after that it had all just been making those things a habit. Now, even though Aubrey wasn't there, it was second nature to her. The class outlines were filed in order of the classes she had to teach for that day. They were color coded so she didn't accidentally teach the wrong thing to her class.

Once everything was set, she took a deep breath, and quietly looked at the picture at the side of her desk. When she'd taken the job teaching here, she was told that personal effects in the classroom weren't forbidden but they should be kept to a minimum. She had just the one picture - of herself and Aubrey. The blonde was dressed in her army uniform, and they were both smiling even though they were dying inside. Because that picture had been taken two hundred and sixty six days ago and Aubrey was still deployed.

She was proud of her wife. Immensely. Her physical fitness had kind of made all basic training a breeze and her brainpower had meant that it hadn't taken long for Military Intelligence to come knocking. Hence the transfer to Fort Gordon, where they were now. Beca didn't even really know what her wife did, day to day, because she mostly wasn't free to talk about it. All she knew was that the orders had come Tuesday morning giving her notice of deployment, and she was gone Wednesday afternoon.

It was definitely hard. She missed Aubrey beyond belief. She did have a few friends on base - some of the other army wives, and a couple army husbands. And she was in regular contact with the Bellas. But it didn't come anywhere close to having Aubrey home. It was expected that she'd be away whenever they asked - they knew what her joining the military would be like - but it didn't mean it sucked any less. She ran a finger over the edge of the frame and smiled.

Then she picked up the little frame next to the photo - the only other personal item she had on top of the desk - and flipped the little disk on the end of the series of three so that the 5 read 6. It was her counter of how many days she was without Aubrey. It seemed a bit weird to have it at school, but if she kept it at home she'd end up drinking an entire bottle of wine, depressed every time she saw it. Here it was just part of the routine, something she did just as her first class began arriving. Today it was a senior class.

"Two sixty six, Ms Mitchell?" one of the students asked as he entered. "That's gotta suck."

"Yeah it does," she said, putting the little flip calendar down. "It is what it is, though." It wasn't uncommon for her to chat with some of her students about deployment - many of the kids attending the school had a parent enlisted, so they knew what the deal was. Lots of them even knew Aubrey, same as she knew their folks from around the base.

The rest of the class filed in, and Beca put aside the fact that she missed Aubrey for a while so she could give them her full attention. Again, it was part of the routine. She'd go about her day as if nothing was bothering her, then she'd pack everything back up in the reverse order she'd unpacked it and head home.

Their base quarters weren't flashy, but they weren't horrible. The little house with the three bedrooms was enough, and it was their home. There was a gorgeous peach tree in the yard, and a nice little area out the back where they could sit and enjoy each other's company, or eat dinner. And their neighbors were pretty nice. The couple on the left were both enlisted, though neither were on deployment at the moment. On the right, another husband and wife team, but the husband had been deployed about three months after Aubrey. Sasha was good for a glass of wine and mutual commiserations.

When she got home that evening, she unpacked her stuff and then spent an hour working on stuff for upcoming lessons. After that she changed and took a run - another habit she'd picked up from Aubrey. It was something they did together, though the blonde did have to reduce her pace so that Beca could keep up. After the run it was home for a shower, then cooking dinner for herself and some more preparations for the following day, before she either goofed around with her home recording setup or simply went to bed with a book.

The following morning she went about her routine as normal - shower, dress, coffee, breakfast. But she also pulled her laptop over and sent an email to Aubrey. She was aware that their communication opportunities were limited but she hadn't even heard from her in what felt like weeks. Then she packed herself up and headed to school, again to sit at her desk and turn the little number plate from six to seven.

The two sixty seven became two ninety two and there still hadn't been any word from Aubrey. She was worried. Not overtly so, because if there had been a problem, she would have been notified. She just missed her, plain and simple, and was desperate to hear from her. She flipped the two in place on her counter and set it down, before shaking herself out of it and focusing on her first class.

The last period of the day was dragging on and on. She still had half of it to go - sophomore music. The class was finishing up research papers of a musician who was popular prior to 1980, and they were all just writing in earnest, occasionally asking a question about grammar or the structure of the paper. She looked down at her picture of Aubrey and smiled, but she wondered if this might be the first time Aubrey was deployed for a year. She immediately tried to quash the very idea.

She was snapped out of her musing by a knock on the door, and she called out for whomever was on the other side to come in. The door swung open and Beca nearly fell off her chair at the sight in front of her.

Because it was her wife. Plain as day, standing in her classroom. She looked exhausted and like she'd been wearing the combat fatigues while she traveled, but she was actually there. And despite the tiredness and rumpled appearance, Beca couldn't imagine anything more beautiful. The entire class had stopped to watch this moment.

"Hi," Aubrey said to a still shocked Beca.

"Aubrey," she said, getting up and throwing herself at the blonde. Aubrey caught her, lifted her up off of the floor and held her tight as her students applauded and cheered. Beca felt tears sliding down her face, she was sure they were happy tears because this moment was one of the most incredible thing she ever experienced. She pulled back and saw that Aubrey was crying a little too, so she kissed her hard. She remembered that there was a room full of students only after they began catcalling, and she broke off.

"You're home," she said. She pulled the blonde into her arms again.

"Yeah," Aubrey said. "I thought about staying home and waiting for you there but then I'd have to wait another hour and I think we've waited long enough so I hitched a ride from one of the guys." Beca didn't want to let go, she was intent on savoring the smell of her wife, the feel of her in her arms.

"I love you," she said to the soldier. "And goddamn I missed you. I counted down every single day we were apart." There was a knock on the door and the teacher from the neighboring classroom stuck his head in.

"Everything okay in here?" asked a man's voice. "There was quite a ruckus- oh!" He had registered that Beca's wife was standing in the room in uniform.

"Sorry," Beca said. "As you can see I had a very unexpected visitor."

"Welcome home," he said to Aubrey.

"Thank you," she said. "It's good to be Stateside again."

"You've been gone quite a while," he recalled.

"Two hundred and ninety two days," Beca said pointedly. He smiled and looked at the very obviously distracted class.

"Why don't you dismiss early?" he said. "You've only got about twenty minutes left anyway."

"That sounds perfect," Beca said. "Alright guys you're lucky, because I'm letting you go. Your papers are due next week. Now get out so I can go home." They were gone inside a matter of minutes and the second the last of them had left Beca pushed Aubrey up against the closed door and kissed her passionately. The kind of kiss she would have given her earlier had their not been twenty five teenagers in the room.

"Hi," she said, once she'd pulled back. "I'm really glad you're home."

"Me too," Aubrey replied. "I love you so much." She pulled the smaller woman in again and just held her for a few long moments, trailing fingers through her hair.

"Let's go home," Beca said. Aubrey nodded, and Beca packed up all her stuff in record time. On the drive back she asked a question.

"How come you're home? Is everything okay?" Beca asked.

"I'm fine," Aubrey said. "There was an incident with Garrett and Dwyer, and a few people on the other side. Nobody's physically hurt. But they saw things people shouldn't have to see and they both failed the post incident psych. So with them out of action they decided to rotate our team out because we need our guys to be working cohesively and they couldn't replace them."

"They're gonna be okay?" Beca asked. She knew the people Aubrey referred to, and liked them.

"I think they will be," Aubrey said. "But they need to not be there for a while. As soon as orders came down I was packed and waiting for the first transport out." Beca nodded and drove on. When she got home she noted Aubrey's bag was literally just inside the door like she hadn't even bothered coming inside properly.

"I know what you're thinking," Aubrey said. "I just wanted to see you. Touch you with my own hands and kiss you." She pulled Beca in again.

"Are you tired?" Beca asked, as the blonde began kissing her way down her neck.

"Yes but if you honestly think that me touching you is going to be able to wait, you're crazy," Aubrey said. "I was gone a long time and I missed everything about you. And I'd very much like to reacquaint myself with your body right now." Beca had no complaints, she desperately needed her wife just as bad.

When they were done refamiliarising themselves with each other in an intimate manner, Beca just curled up against her wife and threw an arm over her. Aubrey was beginning to succumb to the fatigue of travel now, her eyes slipping closed as Beca's thumb lightly stroked her arm.

"How long do you want me to let you sleep?" Beca asked.

"Just an hour or so," Aubrey replied. Beca removed her arm and set a timer before she cuddled into her again.

"Hope you don't mind me crashing your nap," Beca said. "I missed being in the bed with you next to me." Aubrey smiled and rolled over, wrapping her taller frame around her smaller wife.

"Me too," she mumbled, kissing her shoulder. "But I'm home now." Beca smiled and within minutes they were both asleep.


End file.
